Many prior art pressure control valves have been designed, and one form of prior art pressure control valve includes a spool member shiftable within the bore of a valve body against spring pressure from a normally closed position to an open position. The advantage of this form of pressure control valve is its relative ease of manufacture and reliability of operation. However, this form of pressure control valve has inherent disadvantages in that as the response rate increases so does its instability. Thus, in the basic design referred to above if the valve spool responds rapidly it will tend to overshoot its desired nominal design operating position leading to valve instability or chatter. It has been proposed in the past to damp the movement of the valve spool to improve stability. However, this customarily has the disadvantage of reducing the responsiveness of the valve. Furthermore, the damping is generally at varying rates wherein as the valve spool moves in one direction it is damped at one rate, and when it moves in the other direction it is damped at an entirely different rate. In addition, prior art valves which tend to be responsive are also frequently affected by transient peaks in the input pressure, and valve spools are especially prone to chatter in systems where they are regulating the output pressure of a pump where the pump ripples are near or at the natural frequency of the spring mass system of the spool and regulating spring.